SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Medical Center security personnel and other key staffers will meet this afternoon to review their response to the hours-long standoff that ended with a man fatally shooting himself in the head in the emergency department parking lot early Wednesday.

Thomas Lynch, director of security for Baystate, said extensive training and drills enabled the hospital to function as smoothly as possible and continue to provide emergency medical care during the standoff.

"I guess the one lesson that I took away from last night is that the work we have done with the community, locally and regionally, paid off," Lynch said. "Regardless of what is going on in the environment, we still have to care for people."

Lynch said that both individual and group counseling was made available to Baystate personnel in the wake of the incident, and that continues today.

West Springfield resident Eddie Bonafe, who lives on Birch Park Circle, shot himself at 12:02 a.m. Wednesday. He was pronounced dead at the hospital at 12:23 a.m.

Police said the incident began Tuesday night when Bonafe shot his wife during an argument on Piper Road in West Springfield and then drove her to the hospital.

Police, who have not publicly identified the wife, said she is in good condition at Baystate.

Lynch said while police maintained an outside perimeter during the standoff, Baystate security worked to contain things from the inside.

Their immediate priority, he said, was to get the 40 or so people waiting within the emergency department waiting room, which has windows overlooking where the standoff took place, further inside the building.

"We relocated back and made sure that people stayed behind that line, if you will," Lynch said.

Because the standoff took place near the emergency department's normal ambulatory entrance, incoming emergency patients were brought in through the ambulance entrance, Lynch said.

“We did not close services,” he said.

Lynch said that this afternoon's debriefing session, known as an after-action review, typically follows any major event involving the hospital.

Lynch said he was impressed with the police department's response to the incident.

"They showed tremendous discipline and professionalism and patience," Lynch said. "This was a very difficult circumstance. They really tried to bring this off to the best possible conclusion, so my hat is off to them."

02/18/14-Springfield-Republican Staff Photo by Dave Roback-Springfield Police and ambulance personnel on the scene outside the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield during a standoff with a gunman.